Last week I managed to get to the cinema to watch John Carter (who is definitely not from Mars, no Sir, not at all) a 250 million dollar Disney extravaganza, carefully pitched at people who don’t like Sci-fi or Fantasy, but do like epic escapist legends set on other planets.
Considering the source material is at the primordial-soup end of sci-fi history, the production team did a staggering job. The story was suitably planet sized, with a big heart, funny moments, and a likeable hero. It was also framed in a clever twist of narrative set back on Earth featuring (nod to) Edgar Rice Burroughs. And of course, the effects looked 250 million dollars.
So it was a shame that the film was so tediously boring.
Since emerging blinking into the light of Jasoom I have been wondering why and how this behemoth of a film managed to fail. It lacks star power, but so do plenty of great films (stars have to start somewhere), and the if the leads are a bit uninspiring then at least they are not total charisma vacuums.
It could be that familiarity breads contempt. A Princess of Mars (the source book) is a frail old dear that will be getting its letter from the queen in the next few years, but it’s also the inspiration for an entire generation of pulp fantasy, including movie icons like Star Wars. So the tropes are old and worn, and the conceit about what Mars civilisation might be like (a mash-up of decadent Rome and exotic Aztec imagery) is a Disneyfied version, realised without any richness or passion – this is a Small Mars after all. And let’s not get into the amazing effects of 38% Earth gravity, that seems to turn lucky old John into a Barsoomian Superman.
But classics are old and worn, and they still work. And dont start on about pulp fiction, because when its fun and frothy that works to. So the fault must be elsewhere.
In fact I think that the problem with John Carter is that the sheer weight of money sunk into the project has crushed the creative process. The result is a by-the-numbers experience that lacks any real vision, and doesn’t have the space and the confidence to tell this adventurous tale in the adventurous spirit that was needed. There is no blood and sweat, there is no grime and fear, and there is no spark in the eyes.
On the set of Star Wars the cast felt able to stand up to George Lucas when he lost the plot. ‘You can type this shit, George,’ Harrison Ford famously said, ‘but you sure as hell can’t say it.’ In the end I think that John Carter could have done with a bit if the same, and it’s a shame that the voices were drowned out by the sound of millions of dollars thudding endlessly into the Martian sands.
David Millard 